"The first thing they asked for was to taste Ukrainian ice cream": six children evacuated from occupied part of Kherson Oblast
Six more families with children – two boys and four girls aged between 3 and 12 – have managed to evacuate from the temporarily occupied territory of Kherson Oblast.
Source: Oleksandr Prokudin, Head of Kherson Oblast Military Administration
Details: Prokudin noted that the NGO Save Ukraine was responsible for organising the evacuation.
"These children were living in the temporarily occupied territory, and their families turned to us for help," Save Ukraine told Ukrainska Pravda.Zhyttia.
The organisation noted that the children had no access to proper healthcare in the temporarily occupied territories.
"For instance, one of the boys had spent most of his time indoors as his parents wouldn’t let him go out for security reasons. He needs socialisation, communication and rehabilitation. He also has sight problems – he hasn’t seen an optician for the last two and a half years, and this has to be done as soon as possible," the organisation reports.
The Save Ukraine representatives added that emotionally, the evacuated families were in a bad way. The parents revealed that since the start of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine, it had felt as if they had no life.
"It seemed like it froze during that time," they said.
After the evacuation, the children were anxious but at the same time glad that they were finally in Ukraine-controlled territory.
"They started adapting pretty much right away: they realised they could speak Ukrainian freely, carry the symbols of the Ukrainian state, and even just walk around freely. The first thing they asked for was to taste Ukrainian ice cream," Save Ukraine said.
Psychologists from the organisation are now working with the children to help them rehabilitate, reintegrate into Ukrainian society and start a new life, taking the individual circumstances of each family into account.
Background: The police will prosecute parents who hide their children to avoid evacuation in the settlement of Myrnohrad, Donetsk Oblast.
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